The general opened a law office in San Francisco, and it was there he married. Soon the tumult and agitation of the secession movement, followed by the call for volunteers, stirred his patriotic spirit and martial ardor. He offered his services to President Lincoln, who commissioned him as brigadier general, assigned to General Banks’ corps in the army of West Virginia.
The veteran was quickly in the field of operations, soon at the head of a division. It was while in this command he encountered the renowned Stonewall Jackson, inflicting on this hitherto invincible confederate general a defeat which sent him “whirling up the valley.” The tidings of this remarkable victory caused great rejoicing throughout the North and gained great applause and commendations for General Shields. The army of Virginia up to this time had suffered a succession of disasters. The government was in a dilemma.
The command of the Army of the Potomac was at this juncture offered to General Shields. I make this statement on the authority of General Shields himself. Following his victory at Winchester, he said, a member of the cabinet arrived in his camp and on the part of the President proposed to him the command of the Army of the Potomac. The reasons suggested for this tender appeared to be, as I recall them, the necessity for a change of leaders owing to previous ill success; Shields’ established capacity for high command, as shown by his career in Mexico, his recent campaign and the enthusiasm and confidence his appointment would arouse in the ranks of the army, but the controlling motive appeared to be a political consideration—that Shields, because of his foreign birth, could not in the event of his success become a political factor or rival in the field of national politics—that is to say, in no event would it be possible to make of Shields a candidate for the presidency.
The suggestion appears to have been given to Shields in this same interview that the President was then contemplating and preparing to issue the emancipation proclamation. This latter determined Shields’ decision. He rejected the proposal made to him. This, in substance, is my recollection of the statement made by the general during one of his visits to Chicago late in the 70’s. Others besides the writer heard General Shields make this statement at the time.
The President sent Shields’ name to the Senate for confirmation as major general, and as the appointment was not ratified by that body Shields resigned and withdrew from the army. Likely this may have been partly in protest against the threatened emancipation policy. At all events, Shields returned to California. From there he shortly afterward removed to Missouri, settling on a farm near Carrollton in that state and devoting himself to the labors and duties of farm life. In 1877 he was elected member of the general assembly of Missouri, and the same year appointed adjutant general of the state militia. The death of Senator Bogg the next year caused a vacancy in the representation of Missouri in the United States Senate, and General Shields was appointed, thus giving him the distinction of having served in the United States Senate from three different states.
The term was short, and with its termination may be said ended General Shields’ public service as a legislator and statesman. He nevertheless continued an interesting figure before the public, appearing on many occasions in different cities as a lecturer and for addresses on various subjects of general interest. It was while engaged in a lecturing tour that the end came. He died suddenly while visiting a convent in Ottumwa, Iowa, June 1, 1879.
Few men in public life have filled so many and so various offices and employments. He had been school teacher, lawyer, legislator, jurist, state auditor, land commissioner, general in the Mexican and Civil wars, United States senator, adjutant general, farmer and lecturer. He might have been governor of Oregon, commander of the papal army and of the army of the Potomac (possibly), and he could have led the Fenians in their foolish raid on Canada had not his good common sense rejected the offer and condemned the project.
General Shields was warm and earnest in his Irish sympathies, and he showed this on many public occasions. It is to his honor that he lived and died a poor man. He never profited or sought to profit by the multiplied opportunities for personal gain which must have been open to him during his public career. In his old age, after all his notable services, he was receiving a pension of only $34 per month, and when he died all that he left his family was the farm, the swords voted to him by Illinois and South Carolina—and an untarnished name.